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Questions to Minister for Health: School leavers with disabilities accessing services in North Dublin

Questions to Minister for Health Leo Varadkar TD, Minister Lynch and HSE in advance of Health and Children Committee meeting 6 October 2015

Senator Jillian Van TurnhoutTo ask the Minister for Health if he is aware that 40 recent school leavers with disabilities in North Dublin, many in the highest category of support need, were informed on 30 June 2015, contrary to the HSE’s Social Care Operational Plan, that there was no service available for them moving forward. When will the situation be resolved for these young people whereby they are engaged in a service that meets their individual needs and will family members have a choice in the service that their family member attends.

Response:Since the establishment of the Social Care Division in the HSE, significant progress has been made in improving on the planning and co-ordination on the annual allocation of places to school leavers and those young people exiting rehabilitative training (RT). This process has worked well and significant improvement has been made over the past number of years.

In line with these new arrangements and as set out in the Social Care Division Operational Plan 2015, the HSE undertook a mapping exercise to identify individuals who require a day service in 2015; the type of service that is required and the extent to which supports can be delivered within existing resources.

The data collected from each CHO Area indicated the following need:-

Client Status – RT / School Leaver

HSE CHO Area

RT Leaver

School Leaver

Total

CHO Area 1

35

83

118

CHO Area 2

32

77

109

CHO Area 3

27

81

108

CHO Area 4

52

203

255

CHO Area 5

61

128

189

CHO Area 6

34

63

97

CHO Area 7

66

108

174

CHO Area 8

41

111

152

CHO Area 9

32

106

138

Total

380

960

1340

In summary:

1,340 adults require a funded placement in 2015.

Capacity was identified to meet the needs of 508 of these individuals, from the existing services, resulting in a balance of 832 people that required a newly funded day service from the €12m allocation.

As a comparison, in 2014 1,365 people were identified as requiring services. Capacity was identified to meet the needs of 734 people from existing services and the balance of 631 required funding from the 2014 allocation. Therefore in 2015, an additional 201 people require a funded day service response over 2014.

The current position is that 1,305 young people have had their place confirmed. A difficulty arose in respect of 35 young people – 23 of these related to a problem in securing services at Gheel Autism Services in North Dublin, with a further 12 whose placements remain to be finalised principally awaiting capital development of new locations which will be available shortly.

The difficulty which arose in respect of the 23 young people was that they were referred to Gheel Autism Services as their preferred provider.

This provider informed the HSE during the month of August that they were unable to provide the service within the funding allocated and without a significant additional resource to expand their organisational governance structure and staffing.

On receipt of this confirmation the HSE took immediate steps to engage with two other providers of services to people with ASD which have the required competence and expertise to deliver the appropriate specialist services (the two providers are Autism Initiative & Praxis). The HSE communicated with the 23 families and put them in contact with the newly identified providers.

These two providers have undertaken assessments for each individual and have committed to providing an appropriate service for each individual within the allocated resources.

The current position is that 21 of the 23 young people involved have agreed to take up the new services referred to above while 2 people remain to have an agreed service provided. There is active engagement with the 2 families and the relevant providers and it is expected that a positive solution will be forthcoming very shortly.

It is regrettable that this difficulty has arisen in North Dublin. However arrangements have now been put in place to resolve these challenges and overall 98% of the 1,340 young people requiring services have had their places confirmed. The HSE will continue to work actively to ensure that the remaining young people have their places confirmed as soon as possible.